


Like Falling Water

by spookywoods



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Falling In Love, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, M/M, Professor Neville Longbottom, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-25 21:10:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18582637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookywoods/pseuds/spookywoods
Summary: Neville finds out what love is.





	Like Falling Water

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Growing Neville Fest.](https://growing-neville.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Inspired by the song ["Fallingwater"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1AS0AiyzlE) by Maggie Rogers.
> 
> Many thanks to my faithful friend and beta [Kristina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kristinabird), and to [Chris](http://keyflight790.tumblr.com) for creating this lovely fest.

 

_**first** _

Neville blinks away the water soaked through on his eyelashes and stumbles back to the greenhouse in a heap of shivers and wet clothes. He’s panting against the door, freezing his arse off and wondering how long he stood in the rain staring out at the forest.

It’s right before supper and he dismisses it as a mind wandering fatigue sure to be cured with warm stew and pumpkin juice. But later that night when he’s cosy under the covers, he stares at the roof of his canopy bed; a haunting fear lingers in the periphery of his mind and no matter how hard Neville tries to remember, he can’t figure out how he got outside or how long he stood in the pouring rain. He barely allows himself to acknowledge the way his body reacted to the sight of the forest.

The twist of something deep and hidden stirs within him when he thinks about the forest, and he forces his thoughts to new potting methods and lesson plans, to meetings with friends and laughter and all the things he’s happy to distract himself with.

\\\\\\\\\

The rain lets up after four days and Neville goes to the Hog’s Head for a quiet drink and to relish in the simple pleasure of stretching his legs. The crisp spring chill is a welcome embrace when he leaves the confines of the castle, and the farther along the path he gets, the more Neville feels recharged by the open air.

The pub is crowded but Neville manages to wedge himself into the far corner seat, away from the groups and the louder individuals. He nurses a double Ogden’s and finds himself slowly unwinding, the tense bundle of nerves, anxiety, and idleness within him loosening with every intake of amber liquid.

He’s warm, buzzed, and on his second double when he hears his name. He feels more than sees the shuffle of a body next to him before he takes in the sight of messy red curls and beaming blue eyes.

“Charlie,” Neville nods, offering a half smile and slight bump against the other man’s forearm. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

Charlie flashes a grin. “Didn’t expect to be here.” He orders a drink that Neville’s never heard of from the bartender before turning his focus back to Neville. “Had a possible illegal confinement a few towns over, thought I’d sneak a few vacation days. Maybe catch a Quidditch match. Terrorise McGonagall a bit.”

Neville smiles, “Now would be the time. We’re going to have our hands full with the break in the rain. The students have been going stir crazy.”

“I reckon it’s not just the students,” Charlie says as he glances down Neville’s form. The bartender brings him a goblet and he grabs it, taking a long swig.

Neville thinks he should look away but the movement of Charlie’s throat confounds him. He shouldn’t find it attractive, it’s a mechanism of the body, a simple action, and yet the entire thing shifts his focus, his mood, and suddenly the sight of another person downing a drink has ignited his lust.

Neville turns away and tries to hide his frustration. He shifts in his seat, his trousers a bit tighter, and thinks of Luna or Harry or Ron drinking something and he feels a bit ridiculous. Why is it Charlie that does this to him? “Alright, yeah?” Charlie grabs his arm.

“What are you drinking?” Neville changes the subject if only slightly turning his thoughts away from Charlie’s tanned throat and dark auburn beard.

“Stout,” Charlie grins, and Neville’s eyes fall to the bit of his beard just above his lips, to the traces of foam left to linger there. Noticing his stare, Charlie leans in, “Got something a bit stronger in my room upstairs.”

“Do you?” Neville leans back. He catches Charlie’s gaze and the nonverbal _yes_ and _oh god yes_ and _fuck yes_ are shared between them before they pay their tabs and head for the back stairway.

It’s not the first time they’ve stumbled somewhere together. The first was Ron and Hermione’s wedding; the second, after a magizoologist event in Wales. The half a dozen other times were planned in the way that only casual fucks can be planned, through simple invitations when everything is said in the empty spaces between the lines.

But it’s the first time Neville watches another man undress for him, the first time he locks eyes with someone and feels the pull of desire, strong, and encompassing his entire being. Charlie’s stare consumes him, and he’s practically shaking with need before they even touch. Neville often considers himself a generous lover, someone caught up in the slow and thoughtful touches that draw meaning across skin and tell him in sighs and moans and shudders who exactly the person is beneath him. And yet when Charlie presses down and captures his mouth, Neville reaches up and buries his hands in soft curls, letting him map his skin in trails of kisses and caresses and whispers of _Fucking gorgeous_ and _I’ve missed this_ and _You taste so fucking good._ He doesn’t know how much time passes before he feels trapped in a prison of pleasure, his cock slick and hot and buried in the back of Charlie’s throat. He isn’t sure where his body ends and Charlie’s begins; it’s almost as if Charlie is already inside him, as if the pressure of arousal building within him is made of more than just stimulated nerve endings and chemical reactions. All Neville knows is he can’t take it anymore; it’s all too much. He pushes Charlie away and rolls off the bed.

“Nev,” Charlie rasps, wiping a hand across his lips, “You alright?”

“Yeah,” Neville says through heavy breaths. “Fine,” he adds, hunched over the side table and facing away from Charlie.

A hand rests on the small of his back. “You sure about that?”

“I—” but he can’t think. He can’t focus. He should feel charged and aroused and warm but he’s cold and numb and lost. “Why did you say that you missed this?”

Charlie lets out a heavy sigh. “Because I have? Is that why you’re upset?”

“I’m not upset.”

“You’re _something,_ ” Charlie pushes. He stands up and grabs Neville’s wrist, a soft touch that pulls him up so they’re facing each other. “I don’t get around with anyone else these days, you know. It’s just you.”

Neville blinks. “Just me?”

“Yeah. Yes.” Charlie grabs Neville’s face. “In my bed. In my thoughts...In my—” he pauses. “In my heart. And I know you probably don’t feel the same, but we have fun together, right?”

“I feel...I feel something for you,” Neville manages to say. He looks down between them at their flagging erections. He thinks about Charlie’s throat, his smile, the hairs that catch the foam from his drinks. “How do you separate the fleeting desire from the real stuff?”

Charlie shifts the weight of his body forward and embraces Neville. “I don’t know exactly. One day you just feel something a bit deeper, and the spark hits your spine and warms your heart instead of your prick.”

Neville takes a step back and ignores the flurry of residual lust stifling his skin. He focuses on the doubt bubbling in his chest, musters the courage to meet Charlie’s eyes, then asks, “That’s how you feel about me?”

“It’s part of it,” Charlie smiles. He looks over at the bed, at the tangle of wrinkled bed linens and the shadowy indent where Neville had been flat on his back. “Why don’t we catch some sleep?”

“Sleep?” Neville arches a brow.

“You know sleep right?” Charlie pokes him in the side. “That thing we do after we fuck for a few hours?”

“Ohh,” Neville manages to smile. “Sleep. I think I could do that.”

They end up pressed against each other, warmed by their shared body heat and the embers of a dying fire. They fall asleep together without _sleeping_ together. And for the first night all week, Neville drifts off into peaceful unconsciousness, the forest never creeping into his thoughts.

 

_**second** _

They spend the weekend orbiting each other. Charlie joins the faculty for meals as a special guest, accompanies Neville to the Ravenclaw versus Gryffindor Quidditch match, and manages to charm Hagrid into letting him speak to the Care of Magical Creatures classes come Monday. A fluffy, foreign thing starts to bloom in Neville’s chest from casual touches and warm smiles, and by Wednesday it becomes too much for him when he runs into Charlie in a fourth-floor corridor. So Neville pushes him into a nearby alcove.

He presses against him, aligning their bodies in just the right way until he’s satisfied enough to capture Charlie's mouth with his own.

“‘Bout bloody time,” Charlie says between kisses, weaving his hands into the front of Neville’s robes and searching out skin.

“I need you right now,” Neville groans and Charlie trails one of his hands down to palm Neville through his trousers. Neville shakes his head, “No,” and pulls Charlie’s hand away. “I want to snog like we’re fifteen and desperate for it.”

Charlie pulls Neville by the collar of his robes until his lips are teasing the sensitive skin under his earlobe. “Are you?” he kisses Neville’s neck. “Desperate for it?”

Neville shoves him back against the stone, suddenly fueled with an intoxicating mix of hunger and determination. It’s been nearly ten years since the first and only time he’s snogged someone in one of the school alcoves, and he’s eager to wipe the fading memories of Zacharias Smith’s _everything_ from his mind forever. Since the moment he spotted Charlie in the corridor, innocently chatting up one of the portraits, there’s nothing Neville’s wanted more than to snog him six ways from Salazar.

So he does. He kisses Charlie like his life depends on it, like the walls of Hogwarts could come crashing down around them at any moment either from outside forces or the sheer explosive energy caught between them. Neville’s breathless and frantic, the feel of Charlie’s hot breath and beard against his skin a surprising enticement. He shouldn’t love the humid electricity between them, he shouldn’t enjoy the brush of a coarse beard, and he shouldn’t press harder against the jut of Charlie’s hip bone, but he knows it will leave a bruise on his abdomen and the thought ignites a familiar warmth in his chest.

His high quickly deflates when he realises why he wants the bruise, why he wants the blemish of skin irritated by a beard. He surfaces from their slow open-mouthed kiss and pulls away.

“You’ll be heading back to Romania,” he says, inhaling and exhaling in ragged, uneven breaths.

Charlie stands up straight against the wall and sighs. “I was always going back to Romania.”

Neville nods.

“Did you think you could snog me into staying?” Charlie asks, his tone teasing.

“Was worth a try.” Neville bites at his lower lip and suppresses the ache behind his ribcage. Hopeful eyes bore into him and Neville offers Charlie a smile.

“You know,” Charlie says, “I’m not leaving just yet. The portkey’s for the morning.”

“And?”

Charlie grins, “And I think you should keep trying to convince me to stay.” He leans forward and raises his eyebrows. “Might I suggest the greenhouses next? Or perhaps behind a statue near the headmistress’ office.”

“Let’s take a stroll to the greenhouse,” Neville says. “I still have to work here after you leave.”

“Sure.” Charlie adjusts the front of Neville’s robes and urges him forward down the corridor. “You know you don’t have to though, right?”

Neville stops mid-stride. “What?”

Charlie glances at him and keeps walking. “You don’t have to work here.”

“What does that even mean? Of course I do,” Neville baulks. “It’s my job.”

“Yes, a job you’re insanely overqualified for, s’all I’m saying, Nev. Don’t think your talented tongue has me fooled, you’ve got brains and charm and a way with all things flora that most half-rate herbologists can only dream of.”

“There’s a compliment in there, I think?” Neville crosses his arms and sighs. “Charlie—” “I wasn’t trying to say you should quit, I was just pointing out the fact that you’re a talented and sought after expert who could land a job just about anywhere.” Charlie grabs Neville’s hands and cups them in his own. “I’m some washed up dragon tamer who cooks porridge in my pewter cauldron and likes a bit of casual danger in my day-to-day life.”

“You’re one of the foremost experts on dragon behaviour in the world,” Neville states flatly.

“One of many,” Charlie adds.

Neville narrows his eyes. “There’s eight of you.”

“Look at you, paying attention,” Charlie says.

 

_**third** _

Darkness still lurks outside as Neville throws on his cloak and gloves and watches Charlie sling his bag over his shoulder. The odd, newly familiar pressure in his chest starts pushing up into his throat. Neville tries to gulp it down.

“So you’ll Apparate to the Ministry and then Portkey to Bucharest?” He’s asked about five different times, but he’s afraid of what other questions might spill off his tongue if silence grants them opportunity.

Charlie pushes forward and grins in the dim light. “With a stop in Frankfurt, actually. They double check all incoming travellers headed to the Balkans.”

Neville nods, a bit of playful banter about double-checking Charlie has him opening his mouth to reply but he decides against it. Instead, he squeezes Charlie’s shoulder and follows him out of the castle.

The quiet walk to Hogsmeade leaves Neville chilled to the bone, cold across his skin and deeper still in his chest where the nervous warmth of his blooming feelings had simmered for days. The goodbye is succinct—a warm embrace, a rushed kiss, and Charlie’s hopeful eyes saying _I love you_ and _I need you_ behind his actual, “I think we should do this again. Soon.”

“I’d like that,” Neville kisses him again.

And then Charlie’s gone with a _POP!_ and Neville turns back up the path. The new day peeks around the edges of the skyline and the shadows of the forest tease Neville away from the route home. He doesn’t even think about what he’s doing, simply stepping forward on the dewy foliage, the daylight disappearing behind him, the trees beckoning him into the darkness.

He’s walked for a quarter of an hour at least before he stops, sits on a fallen tree, and stares at the sights around him. A patch of flowers bloom in lush, dark purples, draping their vines over the surrounding branches of trees with languid grace. On the opposite side of the clearing, a patch of stiff stalks sway in the breeze, indicating a wet, swampy ground beneath. Neville spots the tracks of critters in the mud and traces their trail out past his line of sight, to the darker depths of the forest.

He’s not sure how long he sits there, but he knows the feeling that seeps its way in, replacing the cold chill with something stronger, something akin to the sudden fright of a shock or surprise, something to raise the hairs on his neck. Only he isn’t shocked, or surprised, and he’s perfectly calm; no part of him is on edge. The pressure in his chest has dissipated, replaced with the inhale and exhale of deep breaths and fresh air and the sweet scent of dense, pure magical life.

He makes it back in time for his first class, going about his routine for half the day until he wipes a hand over his face and touches the sensitive skin around his chin. Charlie’s eyes flash across Neville’s mind and he misses him already. He misses the warmth of his smile, the strength of his hands, and the way he navigated Neville’s vague apprehension.

Pouring over his work, he forgets to eat and falls asleep in his office. By the time he makes it back to his bed, he’s too exhausted to do anything but strip down and burrow into his blankets. He’s alone in bed for the first time in days, and Neville’s not sure he’s felt that kind of disappointment before. He tosses and turns, unsure why he doesn’t seem ready to jump into something with Charlie when it’s so obvious now that he’s attached to him, cares about him, maybe even loves him.

In a fitful storm, Charlie is there, steadfast, managing to stay above the surface of some obtuse body of water. He seems prepared to wait as Nev looks on, unsure, but slowly wading in from the shore at a slow pace.

Neville’s waist deep in the water when Charlie says, _“We should do this again soon.”_

 _“This?”_ Neville asks. “ _Why?”_

Charlie smiles and Neville wakes up in darkness, his heart racing, his skin covered in sweat. He washes himself and waits for dawn before he dresses and heads to the edge of the forest, letting his feet take him the rest of the way as his dream steals most of his attention. He doesn’t even realise it’s started to rain until he reaches the outer edge of a familiar clearing and notices the puddles on the forest floor.

It’s when he finds his spot on the fallen tree and looks out at the life around him that he sees the purple flowers. The petals are glowing, the rain drops glistening and shining, refracting light in prismic patterns across the clearing. It’s a beautiful spectacle, and the light seems to be beckoning some of the other flora to life. A cluster of lanky vines moves out across the forest floor, playfully dancing in and out of the puddles and splashing water on the surrounding trees.

Neville marvels at the incredible scene before him, wondering if it’s the rain, the light from the petals, or a combination of the two that’s bringing joyful exuberance to what had been a desolate forest clearing just the morning before.

He decides to study it, to come back each morning and take notes, sketch the scenes and identify the specimens. It takes a few weeks but with the arrival of a few new books, he thinks he’ll be able to narrow down the origin of the mysterious purple flowers, and though he hasn’t seen them behave again as they did that rainy morning, he’s been able to observe other new and strange phenomena.

_I’m not sure what’s causing it, but they seem to be blooming even larger, opening up wider, and their sweet, sultry fragrance has only gotten stronger._

He writes his notes in his own shorthand, but details his findings in his letters to Charlie.

_I can’t find anything like them in any books or studies. I feel as if I might have discovered something but have no idea what it is that’s before me or what causes these differing behaviors._

It’s a warm, late spring afternoon when Charlie arrives at the greenhouse instead of a letter.

There are kisses and exchanges of surprise and a few potted plants don’t survive the embrace, falling to the floor next to piles of discarded clothes. Later, after supper, after more kisses and heated touches, Neville sits at the desk in his quarters and stares at his notes.

“Did you ever stop to think that the stimuli might be you?” Charlie says and drapes his arms over Neville’s shoulders.

“Me?”

Charlie kisses his neck and Neville can’t help but lean into it, eager for more of Charlie’s touches and desperate to catalogue and remember each and every moment they share together.

“The way you describe that silly vine,” Charlie breathes again his skin, “it sounds like what you do to me.”

“You aren’t a silly vine,” Neville says. He stands up and leads Charlie back to bed, forcing him to sit. Neville clutches Charlie’s face in his hands and straddles his hips. “You’re like the—”

“Don’t say it!” Charlie laughs. He kisses the words out of Neville’s mouth and flips them around, pushing Neville down on his back. In between undressing and the slow teasing caresses and kisses down Neville’s chest, Charlie adds, “For me, you’re the mysterious thing in the forest, Neville. I know you’re real and yet it’s so hard to believe no one else has found you. You’ve come alive before me and inspired me in ways I never dreamed of, you’ve put these feelings in me that I never thought I could feel.”

It takes a few breathless moments for Neville to process Charlie’s words, but once he does, it’s as if he loses the ability to make words. Instead, he presses kisses to Charlies lips, his jaw, his throat, anywhere that he can find as his hands wander and grip the body above him. He can’t find enough ways to get close to Charlie, to feel him, to get himself back to that moment where their bodies became indistinguishable from one another.

Every movement brings them closer, pushes them deeper, sets their souls alight and dangles the rush of ecstasy before them. When Charlie falls over the edge, Neville shakes with pleasure, overwhelmed from the inside out. It’s too much again but he chases the feeling until it shatters him, and the only thing he can do is breathe and descend back into his body.

When he sleeps, he dreams of peaceful waters where he and Charlie float atop the surface and smile at the clear skies above. For the first morning in weeks, Neville doesn’t go out to the forest to observe, nor does he go the morning after that. When he does finally make it back to the forest, the clearing alludes him. He searches for days in all his spare time, but is unable to find those flowers again.

Still, in the fall he submits his findings to the top herbology journal. They publish his sketches, his observations, and the consensus around the scholarly circles is that he discovered something special, something inherently magical and therefore mysterious by nature.

“ _‘Mysterious by nature’_?” Charlie laughs and sets the folded journal down on the table. The Great Hall is bustling with enthusiastic students as the first week of classes gets underway. Charlie leans over and says, “Is it so hard to just say _‘We don’t know what this is but we know that it’s something special’_?”

Neville freezes as something presses up into his chest, something he hasn’t felt in months. He thought he would’ve felt it when Charlie accepted the Care of Magical Creatures job after a bad run in with a Horntail left his back singed and scarred. Or even when they stumbled upon the idea to keep shared quarters when McGonagall had assumed they’d be living together. Neville even managed to stay calm after he let slip that he loved Charlie when they were curled around each other, half asleep and spent from a late evening quickie.

He pictures the dance of vines, the light reflecting off the puddles of water, and the rain falling down around it all. “I don’t know what this is,” Neville turns to Charlie. “But I know it’s something special.”

“Don’t know what it is?” Charlie smiles, the crumbs from his toast falling from the place where the corner of his mouth meets his beard.

“Love,” Neville says without hesitation and stares at Charlie’s smile. “Knowing the name doesn’t mean I know what it is.”

Charlie worries his brows and leans even closer. “I agree, but I’m glad to be here discovering it with you. I think that’s the answer to _what it is,_ Nev.”

“What’s that?”

“A journey.”


End file.
